Humans Scaling the Universe

We exist on the tip-point of the large and small.  

There seems to be a limit to how big or tiny life can be.  

We can only exist at a special scale where the universe interacts with itself.  

Life happens in the narrow band between the extremes of galactic super-structures and Planckian indeterminacy.

We can only impact the universe in scales near to our own.

It leaves one with awe to consider we exist in the special range where reality comes to know itself.

From Huge

The biggest organization of matter and energy we know of are galactic super-structures.

Galactic super structures as detected and described

Formed by a newly discovered, but not understood “dark energy”, these collections of galaxies are at 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles long (21 zeros) and 90,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles thick (19 zeros).

At this largest known scale, the galaxies appear grouped together like the skin of soap bubbles in the kitchen sink. 

Great voids of cold, empty darkness fill space between films of galaxies.  These voids are not truly empty, rather sparse compared to the concentration of galactic bubble skins.

There may be larger structures than these; we are still in the process of discovery. 

There are physical limits to how far we will be able to sense because of the speed of light.  We may never be able know the true formation beyond a certain scale.

Two imaginings of  Planck Scale quantum foam

To Tiny

The smallest organization of matter and energy we know is at the Planck Length.

Sometimes called space-time foam, the Planck length is where energy and matter can be no smaller.

The rules we know through math suggest the Planck Length is the very fabric of reality.

Only 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000636 inches across (34 zeros), these size scales are so small we can not even measure its existence, rather only guess using formula.

Here matter and energy also vibrate in a foamy like way.  

Some suggest that this is the scale were bits of matter and energy form.  Others speculate the universe vibrates at this level giving rise to matter and energy. 

There may be smaller structures than the Planck Length.

Beyond Planck scales, reality as we know it makes no sense.  It appears as if the essence of reality itself is bubbling in and out of existence at this tiniest of scales.

Humans in the
middle of scale

The Great In-between

Almost exactly in the middle of the scale, life exist. 

Larger structures are too separated by space to have enough effect on each other to develop complex systems like life.

Smaller structures are also too separated to be able to have the intricacy needed in order for life to exist.

Only from the largest of whales to tiniest of microbes does there exists enough interaction of matter and energy for life to form.

A hundred pennies

Measuring Scale by Hundreds

Before we can understand how is big and how small is small, lets review some simple math.

Think about a hundred pennies.  

A hundred pennies is something most people count at one time or another.  A hundred is number we know. 

Scaling in hundreds

Using units of one hundred is something our minds can grasp.  We can see a hundred items and have a sense of just how many that is.

Going from one to a hundred pennies is the same scale as going from a hundred to ten thousand pennies ($100).  

Going from ten thousand to a million pennies ($10,000) is another simple jump in scale.

The same kind of scaling works in the opposite direction.  Imagining a hundredth of a meter is not so hard to visualize.  

Imagining another step down to ten thousands of a meter is a similar leap of mind.

We will use this scale of 100’s to help us understand our scale in the universe.

Each of the dotted lines will represents a jump in a hundred times of size. Going to the left we get bigger, going to the right we get smaller.

Our Place

The scale between a human and a pyramid is similar to a mosquito to a human.  These jumps of up one hundred and down one hundred can be used as a reference point for how big each leap we will make.

Going Big

As we go up the scale, a mountain is to a pyramid as a pyramid is to a human.  Each dotted line represents a hundred times bigger.

Going up from human to moon, from moon to the solar system and beyond, we can begin to understand the enormity of it all.

The planets and stars interact with one another.  They are too far apart to form life in any way that we could understand.  

The forces are so far apart and the time taken to interact so long that highly complex structures simply can not form.

As long as humans only used their eyes, they could not even know how the solar system was formed.  Only when they began to use telescopes did it shape start to be understood.

With larger and more powerful telescopes like the Hubble and others we have begun to probe far beyond what we knew before. 

Amazing structures that slowly form and fade at large scale surprise us and inform us.  Several different measurements indicate that the largest structures have taken about 16,000,000,000 (9 zeros) years to form.

Going Small

 As we go down the scale, a hair width is to a mosquito as a mosquito is to a human.  Each dotted line represents a hundred times smaller.

Going down from human to DNA, life exists on four steps on our scale.  DNA is .000000001 (seven zeros) smaller than us.

Beyond this point, the universe again becomes sparse.  

The matter and energy that make up atoms are so far apart that their interactions do not permit complex things like life to form.

The smallest thing we can see is about the diameter of a hair.  Beyond that scale our naked eyes fail to discern.

With microscopes we began to see the smaller.  Moving from light to electrons we seek to understand the tiniest of things. 

Even these tools have limits to how small we can see.  Indirect evidence and experiment lead us to theories about what actually is below smaller scales.

Human Scaling

As recently as 1900, humankind only interacted with scales between mountains and hairs.  Things a thousand times bigger or smaller than us were only imagined or indirectly sensed.

Atom bombs and atoms moved

Einstein, Goddard, and Crick invented ideas and tools that extended our knowledge to the larger and the smaller. By 1970 humans had reached the moon and begun to understand the structure of DNA.

Our tools have only recently in human history had the ability to move mountains.  With the advent of the atom bomb, we have just now been able to effect reality on the 10,000 scale.

Our tools have only just allowed us to move individual atoms around.  We now manipulate DNA and other small molecules regularly.

Tools that change the universe on larger scales require enormous energy, often out of control. There may be limits to how much energy we can control.

Tools that change the universe on smaller scales require precise control and much less energy.  There may be limits on how accurate we can be.

Comparing Scales

If we think about the scaling of things in the universe, it helps to understand the enormity and tininess of it all:

Galaxies are to stars as stars are to earth.

The moon is to a mountain as a mountain is to an human.

A human is to a hair as a cell is to DNA.

Cells are to atoms as atoms are to electrons.

At each scale, different structures, different organizations of the universe exist.  The relationships between the scales give rise to the structure itself.   The largest galactic cluster is composed of reality on the Planck level.

Limits of Scale

Perhaps someday in the not too distant future, humans will move regularly through our solar system.  It does not seem impossible that we may even manipulate the parts of the atom.

There do appear to be physical limits in both directions, large and small, that will slow down our understanding and our impact on the universe.

It is wonderful to live in times of great discovery.  It may be tragic to not have lived after them.  

Note: If you want to explore the scale of humans to the universe, there is a wonderful online program developed by Cary and Michael Huang.  This tool allows you zoom in and out at different scales, seeing graphically the relationships between Planck length and observable universe.  I encourage you to spend time with this tool and learn just where humans fit in the scale of the universe.  http://htwins.net/scale2/

NRA: Not Representative Anymore

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been taken over by the firearms industry and is promoting radical views to increase sales.  Hunters, hobbyists, and decent citizens are being fed propaganda from secret agendas of greed.

I want to exercise my second amendment rights.  I can no longer support the NRA.  We citizens have the right to own and responsibly use firearms.  It is enshrined in the constitution. The firearms industry has used the NRA to twist our rights into something sinister. 

Do not be fooled.  Not everyone against the immoral practices of firearm manufactures is trying to take your guns away.  Do not let your fear overwhelm your good sense.  Do not let the intentional polarization of the debate allow greed and fraud run amok in our land.

Way Back When

When I was very young we were not wealthy.  Dad supplemented our meager chicken coop meat supply with deer, duck, trout, and salmon. 

Generational bonding on the hunt

Grandpa shared his “The American Rifleman”, the NRA’s magazine, with me.  I read about adventure cuddled in a cozy army surplus sleeping bag.  Lusting after my own .22, begging for my own BB gun, watching dad load his own ammo or simply watching my grandpa clean his vintage M1 rifle were apart of my childhood.

Starting in 1977, as a soldier, I learned how to use many kinds of firearms proficiently.  Safe handling of pistols, assault rifles, and mortars became my profession. 

Throughout its history, the NRA had been a bipartisan group of liberals and conservatives that shared common interests in guns, hunting, and marksmanship.

The NRA was a rifle club.  It worked with the National Guard to improve member’s marksmanship.  Hunter education, marksman competitions, and hobby promotion were its main focus.  This hobby sporting group even advocated conserving natural habitat for game.  National training programs taught Boy Scouts how to handle guns safely.

Radical Revolution

While I was learning the weapons of war, the NRA became radicalized.  Fevered, angry Second Amendment fundamentalists using walkie-talkies, bull horns, and orange baseball caps staged a highly organized coup to take over leadership of the NRA. 

The organization went from a club for sportsmen, to a radical political lobby. 

Dissent shouted down 

The cause of the revolution was the Gun Control Act of 1968.  Incited by turmoil of the 1960s where multiple assassinations, street violence and riots drove Congress to regulate the interstate commerce of firearms. 

The Act made it illegal for convicted criminals, addicts, the mentally ill or non-citizens to purchase guns. Many conservatives, including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, publicly supported the act.

The NRA’s new leader after the coup was Harlon Carter.  Mr. Carter had been convicted of murdering a 14 year old Hispanic boy in Texas while attempting to kidnap him. 

Carter proclaimed violent felons, the mentally deranged, and addicts had a right to gun ownership because it was “a price we pay for freedom”.  He even advocated giving grade school children pistols for self defense from bullies.

Fear Mongering for Money

Using fear and terror tactics, the new NRA leaders declared that the government was trying to take away all the guns from everyone. 

Harlan Carter

Any limitation on firearms was declared traitorous.  Everyone, at any time, and in any place should be able to have a firearm.  Adults, children, criminals and insane all should be free of any restrictions.  Church, school, funerals, and athletic events should allow the bearing of arms.

As professionals who work in advertising should know, fear sells.  Fear sells better than sex or greed.

Regular bulletins were mailed to members, each escalating the trepidation that guns were about to disappear.   Article after article, press release after press released followed.  Constantly repeating the threat to freedom and the imminent demise of the second amendment, terror was put into the hearts of men. 

Scaring people by saying things that were not true gave good people doubt.  Hearing lies told over and over again, many began to believe the deceit was truth.  A closed mutual support network of alarm amplified the messages even further.

Fear worked.

In only a few years, membership in the NRA had tripled.  The new members brought their cash with them. 

Selling branded apparel, bumper stickers and decals at high markup, the money rolled in. More money was raised by selling, cancer, theft, and medical insurance.  Like carnival hucksters, they dazzled members with overpriced trinkets and misdirection. 

Radical Lobbying

Another of the revolutionary leaders, Neal Knox, moved to Washington DC and launched a radical gun lobby effort.  Knox claimed that the assassinations and other tragedies of the 1960s had been part of a vast plot to control guns.  Saying “that some of the incidents could have been created for the purpose of disarming the people of the free world” he used NRA money to lobby for gutting the enforcement of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Neal Knox

The money, lobbying, and campaign contributions paid off when Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.  The new law stopped government from tracking gun ownership and allowed ammo to be sent through the mail and across state lines unregulated.  The law stripped the ability for the government to know when a criminal, addict, or insane person had been sold a gun.

Some lawmakers said off the record that they would have voted against the act but feared retaliation from the NRA’s now powerful gun lobby come election time.

Corporate Money

Money from gun manufactures significantly impacts the funding of NRA’s lobbying effort.  Private gifts from owners of manufactures and from gun industry firms have been estimated at over $70 million per year.

Not very wise

Without firearm industry’s donations, the NRA would not be able to maintain its membership programs, much less lobby government. 

“The NRA is basically helping to make sure the gun industry can increase sales," Representative Carolyn McCarthy "No one is challenging NRA members' right to own guns."

Midway USA, Sturm, Ruger & Co. Smith & Wesson, and Beretta USA are all large funders of the NRA’s lobbying efforts. 

The $16 billion a year firearm industry uses the NRA as its spokesman.  The NRA no longer represents gun owners and hobbyists. 

The NRA “translates the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country," said Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center.

No firearms here please

"The NRA clearly benefits from the gun industry," William Vizzard, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "There’s a symbiotic relationship. They have co-aligned goals much more than 30 or 40 years ago."

They "started out as a grassroots organization and became an industry organization," Vizzard also said, "The NRA is generating fear.  The industry has learned that the more controversy there is about guns, the more guns sell -- whether it’s a legitimate controversy over a bill, or a trumped-up one like, 'Obama’s been re-elected, they’re going to take away our guns.'"

In his book, Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman said that the NRA had degenerated into "a cynical, mercenary political cult," that was "obsessed with wielding power while relentlessly squeezing contributions from its members."

Partisan Politics

With the new lobbying effort, the NRA came to be closely tied to the Republican Party.  What had once been a non-partisan hobby organization now was directly involved in one-sided election politics.

Responsible training is good

Activists began to claim that black helicopter carrying federal agents dressed like ninjas were coming to take the guns away.  Using the tragedies at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas; Democratic control was proclaimed to be “jackbooted Government thugs” who wanted “power to take our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure and kill us.”

This was too much for even staunch conservatives like Ronald Reagan who wrote about the assassination attempt on his person “Lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special - a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol - purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance. This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress (the Brady Bill)... had been law."

George H.W. Bush, who resigned his NRA membership over this radical rhetoric, wrote "I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy when the NRA, defended his attack on federal agents as ‘jack-booted thugs'.  To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as ‘wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms’ wanting to ‘attack law abiding citizens’ is a vicious slander on good people."

Changing Tactics, Not Direction

A stunned ex-president of the NRA observed “We were akin to the Boy Scouts of America … and now we’re cast with the Nazis, the skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan.”

Guns and Moses

To change their growing negative public image, they decided to bring in an action movie star, Charlton Heston.  Heston put a new spin on the same rhetoric.  Predicting the loss of liberty, Heston recast the NRA message in patriotic terms.  Using images of Pearl Harbor, Concord, Lexington and farmers he called firearms “sacred stuff”.

Actively working for the Republican campaign, Heston helped sway sufficient voters in the swing states of Arkansas and West Virginia to very narrowly defeat Al Gore’s Democratic campaign for the presidency.

In the most recent election of 2012, the NRA lobbying group directly spent $20 million on federal campaigns alone.  With new Super PACs it is no longer possible to know how much was spent indirectly.  The NRA spends significantly more on issue specific advertising and soft money political action committees which effect elections results. 

Fourteen out of the 29 lobbyists employed by the NRA previously held government jobs.  90% of those were Republican appointees, prior to working for the NRA. 

Gun Sales Explode

According to the General Social Survey, the NRA’s partisan lobbying has radically changed gun ownership in the United States.

Households with guns by political party

Using Charlton Heston as a spokesman, gun sales exploded.

Number of background checks per year.

By spreading the fear that a Democratic President would take their guns away, the industries sales accelerated the trend even further.

Obama supports the Second Amendment and he's unabashed about saying so.  Those who say he is lying are trying to manipulate us. 

Number of firearms manufactured by year

The NRA is more interested in fighting than winning second amendment rights.  Fighting increases gun sales.  Winning would make us safer.

Find a Better Way

No civilized person should support or approve of the misuse, the criminal use nor deranged use of lethal weapons of any kind. 

We need to agree on a return to public civility on this issue.  We must be considerate of each other and address our violence issues as concerned, rational adults.

We must find a way to allow responsible citizens to keep and bear arms, while protecting ourselves from criminals, accident, and the mentally ill.

Perhaps arming teachers with Tasers is a better solution than handguns.  Perhaps better ways to identify criminals and the insane can be found.  Perhaps legal and medical professionals can help us find better ways to reduce violence.

I will not pretend to have the answers to solve this complex problem.  There are no simple solutions to violence.

However, I will not support the NRA until it returns to its sporting, hobbyist roots.  I will not support the NRA until it stops being a prophet for firearm manufactures profits.

Are Corporations, Embryos and Aliens Persons?

What is a person?  Our debate defining ‘person’ is emotionally charged and rarely logical.  Words like ‘baby’, ‘corporation’, ‘human’, and ‘person’ are used interchangeably.  We all may have an opinion, but there is no common agreement on what is a person.

Is he a person?

Historically women and slaves have not been considered persons, even in my own country.  Others wish to consider animals as persons and wish to grant them moral and legal rights.  Science mixes it up with tradition, religion, and law to give us a mind-numbing view of what a ‘person’ is.

When we have an opinion and seek facts to prove it, we are not being honest with truth.  Only when we seek facts first and keep an open mind can we seek truth.  Let’s examine some facts then consider what we mean when we say ‘person’.

Person

There is no legal definition of person agreed upon by states or nations. 

In most societies today adult humans are usually considered persons.

If you look-up dictionary definitions of human and person they are circular.  A human is a person and person is a human.

Frederick Douglass was not a
person until he bought it.

To many a ‘person’ can include non-human entities such as animals, artificial intelligence, or extraterrestrial life.

There are even legal definitions that include entities such as corporations, nations, or even estates in probate as ‘persons’.  In some legal definitions those with extreme mental impairment or lack of brain function have been declassified as ‘persons”.

Religious fundamentalists want to push the definition of person to the moment of conception.

Meanwhile science is struggling to find a clear definition of what constitutes a human. 

Some lawyers and politicians maintain that corporations are legally persons.

Legal Definitions

Initially, only white males over 21 years old who owned property were considered persons in the United States.  Individual states were allowed to determine how much property they must own to achieve personhood.  All others, including the young, poor, women, slaves, and indentured servants were legally considered less than people.

Are corporations persons?

There has been a long struggle across the world to expand the definition of what it is to be a person. In the United States, slaves became persons with the passing of the 13^th Amendment. Women became persons with suffrage. 

Today, children are not considered full persons before the law, only partial persons.  Their rights are limited and controlled until they reach 18 or even 21 years of age.  Voting, driving, and even the freedom to be alone are controlled for children by law.

In 1819 Dartmouth College was granted an initial form of person status as a corporation with Dartmouth v. Woodward.  Later rulings have expanded the definition of corporations giving them many of the legal rights as persons. 

In our most recent election for President one candidate even declared “corporations are people, my friend.”  He meant that corporations are a means for people to enact their powers as persons.

Corporations are widely considered to be owned as property by people and therefore are an extension of the persons who own them.  With multi-national and stock owned companies, the line between what constitutes a person is legally blurred.

Embryo

Conception occurs at the meeting of sperm and egg.  After cells begin dividing they are known medically as an embryo.  At conception a single cell has human genetic material.  If no replication errors occur, there is a potential that an embryo cell will develop into an adult human being.

Is an embryo a person?

Mississippi is attempting to define embryos as a persons.  The legislation says that:

“The right to life begins at conception. All human beings, at every stage of development, are unique, created in God’s image and shall have equal rights as persons under the law.”

Arkansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma have similar legislation in process.  

Recent attempts to define embryos as persons have run against In Vitro fertilization technology.  Couples who have difficulty reproducing may use In Vitro fertilization to generate 15 (or more) embryos. Two or three of those embryos are then implanted into a woman’s womb.  The remaining embryos are kept in storage or destroyed.  Defining an embryo as a person classifies this technology as murder.

Others are claiming that a distinction can be made between In Vitro and sex-based fertilization, by denying person-hood to what they call ‘pseudo-embryos’.

Stem cells are cells that can become any other cell.  Stem cells can theoretically be used to clone a human being.  Embryos created using cloning technology could also be granted person status.  Many nations are actively working on an international ban for cloning humans.

Another consideration about embryos as having life is an often unconsidered moral dilemma.  If a In Vitro fertilization clinic is burning and you only have time to save the technicians inside or the embryos in the freezer, which would you choose?  The most popular choice by far is the technicians, yet thousands of embryos would cease to exist.

Fetus

At nine weeks, the embryo is redefined to be a fetus.  Human-like features only begin to appear after this point of development.  In the first trimester all mammals appear similar.  There are no uniquely human characteristics that can be observed until the second trimester begins.

Is a fetus a person?

The Catholic Church has legally argued for fetuses to be considered persons.  Lawyers representing the Catholic Church have also argued the opposite case that fetuses not to be considered persons. 

Often the debate about a fetus being a person struggles around the issue of when human thought starts.

Brain waves do not start until the 30^th week of pregnancy. Brain waves are not a sign of humanity, rather of animal-like brain function.  Cats, mice, elephants and human fetuses are highly similar in brain function at this time.

Some have been pursuing a definition of a person that starts at independent viability, when a body can live outside of its mother.  These advocates claim that the fetus is a part of the mother until it separated from her body.

Some technologies have been developed that can substitute for a womb, however prior to nine months of development, death outside the womb without these tools is almost certain.  Fetuses are generally not able to live outside the mother until birth.

Most agree babies are persons

Baby

Medically, upon leaving the womb a fetus is redefined to be a baby.

It is scientifically inaccurate to use the word ‘baby’ when referring to an embryo or fetus.  While this may be emotionally satisfying or appeal to our paternal or maternal instincts, it is not a factual scientific or correct legal definition.  

Religion and Spirit

Some religions, like Sunni Islam and fundamentalist Christians, claim that souls are attached to bodies at conception and are therefore persons.

Jewish law defines the legal status of a person at birth, claiming that a fetus is not yet a person until the umbilical cord is cut.

Sunni Islam maintains
persons start at conception

There is no scientific evidence that a soul is attached to a developing human at any point in the development process, embryo, fetus or baby.  Only religious claims based upon faith use this terminology, not the law or science.

Attempts to use the religious doctrine of some to make law for everyone are the equivalent of trying to establish religious law.  In the United States this is expressly forbidden by the constitution which states: 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  

A Fourteenth Amendment was passed to say that rule is also applied to individual states.  

Since not all religions or even sects within a religion agree on person-hood, no one church can say what a person is for all persons, only their own.

The US Supreme Court has made it clear that until objective evidence can show a soul is attached to a body, declaring an embryo as a person will remain a matter of religious opinion and not law.

Animals

Are dolphins persons?

Some view animals as persons.  They advocate vegetarian diets and rights for animals.  Some even go as far as advocating non-violence on animals.  While it may seem extreme, their moral and logical arguments are worth considering in our quest for a definition of what is a person.

Gary Francione thinks we should go so far as to enact animal welfare laws.

Desiring protection for a special subset of non-human species, they wish to see rights defined for animals like chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins and even some birds.  They claim that if we would not do it to a human, we should not do it to these animals either.

If we were to make a genetic modification to an animal, like we do with engineered plants today, that allowed them to speak with us even in a limited way; would we start to see them as persons? 

Science

The debate in science about defining person is not from over by a long shot.  Several definitions have been tried and each has failed in its turn.

Birds use tools, have language, and act morally

At one time, persons were those who used tools.  Evidence that birds, primates, and other species built and used tools took this definition away.

For many years language was seen as the division between person and animal.  Slowly dolphins, chimpanzees, crows, and even ants were seen to have language.  Language alone can not be used a definition for what is a person

Morality is often used as a way to separate humans as persons from other animals.  This definition is under serious threat as sharing, fairness, and even intentional self-sacrifice is documented in animals.

If we could create a clone from a Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon would we consider them a person?

If we meet an alien life form that can think, communicate, and has morality would we give it rights as a person?

How much of a brain can be taken away before stop considering a human body to be a person?  If the brain mostly dies and the body is kept alive by machines, are they still a person?

Conclusions

We do not share a common definition of what a person is. 

Science provides no clear definition.  Religious views vary.  The law adds entities that disturb us.  New technologies will push the boundaries even further.

For any one of us to claim they have the one and only answer is only opinion.  There are no clear facts defining person-hood. 

Attempts, largely by religious fundamentalists, to enshrine their opinions into law, will fail.

Perhaps we should simply admit we are not sure?  Perhaps we should allow ourselves to be more open to others views?

We single persons do not have the right to pick for all other persons what a person is and what a person is not.

Extending compassion and understanding seems like minimal steps for persons to share.

Free Females (Part 2)

Feminine Mystique

Along with the civil rights movement, women began to speak out against unfair social practices in the country.  Betty Friedan, a Midwestern house-wife, asserted that women could be more than dish-washing baby-makers if they desired.  She declared that there was widespread unhappiness among women. 

Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” riveted national attention on the idea that women could want more than a husband, children and home.  She wanted to be more than beautiful, charming and sweet.  She wanted to use her mind.

Fuse for a sexual bombshell

The Pill

At the same time, a new technology emerged that changed the nature of sexual politics.  Birth control that could guarantee women would not get pregnant from any sexual encounter.  This new tool enabling freedom became widely available.  For the first time in human history, women could have sex without life changing consequences.

The sexual revolution can be directly tied to this new reproductive instrument.  Young women no longer had to remain virgins until marriage, when they became servants to the home.  While many women still maintained the old ways, numerous others began to experiment with new found sexual freedom.

The Pill can be seen as an earthquake that sent shock waves of change through society.  Sexual freedom gave way to desire for more freedom in other areas of women’s lives.

Freedom expressed anew

Women began to protest their lack of opportunity.  Burning their bras and girdles as objects of subjection by men, they declared themselves equal and expected more.

Paralleling other civil rights movements of the day, African Americans and women marched, protested and spoke out against prevailing social customs that kept them unequal. 

Equality in education, the right to compete for jobs, and the right to participate in athletics were embraced by these new feminist liberals.  The Civil Rights Act made it law that women could not be discriminated against because of their gender. 

A high point of the liberal feminist movement happened when President Jimmy Carter signed into law that women could serve their country as soldiers.  Not only could women vote and work in their country, they could defend it too.

Onward female soldiers, marching in to war

Women even won the right to control their sexual reproduction through abortion with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.  Declaring the rational that personal liberty made the choice to have an abortion one a doctor and patient should make, liberal women now believed that true sexual freedom was at hand.

Women even tried to pass another amendment to the constitution, known as the Equal Rights Amendment, seeking women’s equality as a fundamental right of the nation.  This effort failed narrowly because of a growing conservative backlash.

Counter revolutionaries in action

Reagan Revolution

A large number of women were very happy being wives and homemakers.  Often citing biblical references, they deemed women’s liberation from men as un-natural and against God’s law.

Abortion was viewed by conservative women and men as murder.  The anti-abortion issue became a major focal points used by Ronald Reagan to win southern states back to conservative causes. 

The counter revolution declared that women who stayed at home had valid lives.  They desired recognition for their efforts as mothers and wives.  Feeling belittled, they used their power of free speech and the ballot box to push back on the more radical elements of feminism.

Societal Change

Although the politics changed away from liberal feminism, society’s adoption of it did not. 

Wearing shoulder pads, pin striped suits, and scarves knotted like ties, women entered the business world in huge numbers.  Many more opened paths in blue collar trades which had been the sole domain of men for centuries.

Hear them roar

Sexual harassment of women began to become taboo.  Men were expected to compete fairly with women and treat them with respect as human beings.  Violence against women was outlawed.  Rape began being profiled as an evil and no longer allowed to be called ‘a women’s fault’.

Media and culture continued to evolve towards equality for women.  Advertising directed at women surged as they became more economically independent.  Programming focused on things that effected women gained great popularity.

Divorce, while often tragic, allowed women to escape men who tried to keep them subjugated or even abused.

Today, more women than men achieve college degrees.  While women still make less than men for equal effort, they are at last able to compete as they desire.

Celebrate Freedom and Equality

I will not declare that women are treated equally now.  Nor will I state that men are either.  There are still many issues to work out between the sexes.

Until technology allows men to have babies, reproductive will remain a contention between men and women.  Until technology permits every conception to be a choice and not an accident, a struggle for rights will continue.

The physical division between men and women may always cause some imbalances.  I hope that this will not always be the case.

It seems only fair that we strive for equality.  It seems only kind that we attempt to treat each other with respect.  It seems only just that we search for the best potential lives for all citizens.

To all the women I know and all that read this, I wish you a happy International Women’s Day.  Hopefully, some day, we will not need it anymore.

Free Females (Part 1)

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Free Females (Part 1)

Sweatshops were common

Over a hundred years ago, women could not vote.  Women could not hold public office. 

Women who expressed their opinions were beaten.  Single women were restricted to lives where they could be controlled by men.  Married women who worked outside the home were considered pariahs. 

While at the moment it is a popular sentiment that ‘feminism’ is bad word, the reality which caused the word should shame us all.  Women are human beings.  Their fight to be seen as such is the story of Feminism.  Their struggle for equality with men is required for men to realize their own freedom.

Women Not Equal

Women garment workers staged a protest on March 8, 1857 in New York City.  They demanded improved working conditions.  Working 14 hour days, 6 days a week, they demanded a ten hour day.  They wanted to end sweatshops, where they were required to live in company dormitories, eat company food, and follow strict codes of corporate enforced dress codes and conduct.  Basically, they wanted to be free like men.

Male dominance as a right

The strike was broken up by policemen.  Beatings wounded many and killed some.  The women were forced back into their condition of slavery to their male corporate masters.  Conservative politicians of the day said women should know their place and used raw force to keep the status quo.  

It was common practice to begin the work day at 5 AM and end at 8PM, with an hour ‘given’ for eating three meals.  Working for just over three dollars a day, one dollar being subtracted for food and board, they lived in prison like conditions. 

There are no women here

Fines were given out for laughing, talking, singing, or less than perfect work.  Frequently fines were invented and used to keep entire paychecks from women’s labor for months at a time.  Frequently they gave the labor of their lives just to have food to eat and a bunk bed to sleep in.

When the Civil War killed so many young men, vast numbers of women who had no one to marry were forced into sweat factories.  There were no other jobs for them allowed by society.  They were denied an education and prohibited from learning trades.  A hidden, subdued resource of labor fueled capitalist men to realize their dream of manifest destiny.

Struggling for minimal rights

Suffragettes

Fifty years later, nothing had changed.  Another women’s strike in the clothing industry in 1908 again ended in bloodshed. 

This time, however, the world took notice.  Mass printing of magazines with photos let a world see conditions and violent reactions of male overseers. 

In England, Russia and the United States women demanded their rights as human beings to be equal before the law.

Ridicule as a weapon

Gaining the right to vote was their initial aim.  Gaining political rights, enfranchisement, were seen as a major stepping stone to equality between the sexes. 

In 1887, the Supreme Court struck down a Washington territory law that enfranchised women. The case of Harlan V. Washington argued that women had no right to judge men on juries and allowed a convicted felon to go free.  Conservative judges claimed women should not judge ‘their betters’.

Many women, following the example of their grandmothers in the Civil War, joined the national effort in World War One and served as nurses, drivers, and gave aid were they are able to the fighting effort. 

At war’s end, President Wilson honored their service to country and advocated a constitutional amendment for suffrage.

By 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment gave full voting rights to women.  Yet even then, women organizing for passing the movement were regularly beaten and raped by conservative men who saw this liberation as a threat.

Kept in their places

Some of the worst violence against suffragettes occurred in previously rebellious southern states, where lynching or tar and feathers were still used as political statements.

In the end, the Progressive movement won out.  Women began to exercise their influence at ballot boxes across the land.  This initial move from second class citizens to full citizenship is something we take for granted now. 

Often unaccredited in our Roaring 1920’s is that for the first time women were allowed to regularly earn High School degrees.  Prior to that, an eighth grade education for females was deemed more than enough.

Some women were even allowed into college.  However, representing over half the population, less than one percent of all women achieved a bachelor’s degree.

Women in war

Rosie the Riveter

World War Two presented a new challenge.  Over 15 million men were called into service of U.S. population of 134 million.  This drained away able bodied men from factory jobs necessary for the war effort.

Liberal government campaigns recruiting women into manufacturing jobs for the war effort were addressed solely at housewives.

Propaganda was also directed at their husbands, many of whom were unwilling to support such jobs. 

More propaganda

A huge surge of now high school educated women filled the ranks of labor, building the weapons of war.  20 million women served their country by doing what had previously been considered men’s work.

Conditions were sometimes harsh and pay was not equal—the average man working in a wartime plant was paid $55 per week, while women were paid just $32.

This new found economic power transformed marketing and business.  Many women now had money of their own to spend.  Advertisers took note and tried to sell new kinds of products to them.  For the first time in American history, women began to develop economic clout.

Back home

Post War Domestication

At the end of the war, liberal government propaganda turned towards employing the returning male soldiers.

Advertising it was a women’s duty to let their jobs go to discharged male veterans, women retreated from the work force back to their newly built suburban homes.

America returned to Republican conservatism during this period.  A great boom in baby making, still working its way through our demographics, became the new normal.

Women, who had been making tanks and planes, became the makers of homes and babies.  With the only un-bombed factories in world, the United States shared unequaled prosperity.

Severing man-kind

Young single women and widows could now find employment in secretarial jobs where they were subservient to men who managed the firms.

Becoming a ‘working girl’ was seen as a brief period where women were supposed to seek their ‘man’.

Once married, they were expected to give up their jobs leading lives supporting their men and creating him a happy home.

Freeing Females (Part 2)